Simon
January 19, 1999 (22:04)
It seems to me that for a game which
leaves most stuff quite vague, the
issue of avatars is quite dogmatic.
The avatar is a shard of the one, or
so the theory goes. In addition, avatars
are possessing charater traits,
memories, and desires completely independent
of the individual. Upon
death, the avatar goes off for a spin
around the great wheel and mortal
half either hangs with the wraiths,
or spins down to oblivion. And that
part is extremely dogmatic in the game.
That might work for some
people, but I can definitely view things
happening some other ways
which directly contradict that view.
I see the avatar as the persons
innermost soul. There is not a soul
and an avatar, just one. The avatar
would be the consciousness of the person.
Therefore upon death,
where would the avatar go, and does
it have to go anywhere? Why
can't that just be the whole ride? The
idea of the avatar as the
concious/subconcious would also screw
with Gilgul. Gilgul would, in
effect, kill such a person in the same
way someone might be brain dead,
but the body kept alive by machines.
Are wraiths then merely shadows
of departed avatars, and aren't a direct
link from the original person at
all? The same way someone leaves a psychic
impression without leaving
themselves? Maybe the game allows for
all that and I just missed it, but
I wouldn't mind your thoughts.
My Karma ran over your Dogma
Simon Spiritson
Peregrine Gray ([email protected])
January 19, 1999 (23:23)
Some stuff I wrote a few years ago:
AVATARS & SUPERNATURALS --
Humans & Mages: Some believe that
all humans have Avatars and are
capable of Awakening, others believe
that only a select few are given
the Gift.
Vampires: Vampires were once humans,
with souls and Avatars of their
own, however weak or dormant. But with
the introduction of the viral
vampiric blood, the mortal dies -- allowing
the mortal self to descend to
the Underworld and either remain there,
restless, or pass on through
Oblivion and into possible reincarnation.
The Avatar, too, passes on
through this mysterious process as the
Eidolon, even if the wraith
remains restless. So what's left in
the undead mortal shell on earth? A
viral spirit that vampirically usurps
the identity of the deceased, a hungry
thing that lives in the blood. Some
have theorized that this vampiric
thing, this Beast, is the bloated Avatar
of Caine, the first vampire from
humanity's distant past. Or perhaps
it is only a portion of that ancient
Avatar, as the Incarna and other totems
are portions of Gaia.
Werewolves: Werewolves ostensibly have
souls, but they are not their
own. When viewed with spirit-sight,
the Garou often appear more
bestial in some way. But the werewolf's
souls are bound up in their
pack totem, so much that they seem to
have a collective, group soul,
which is that totem. And that totem
is a child of (and therefore a part of)
an Incarna-level spirit such as Stag
or Wolf, and those spirits are
ultimately a part of Gaia herself...
which leads to the realization that all
shapeshifters share a common Avatar,
which is Gaia herself. When
viewed in the Umbra, werewolves always
appear in their Crinos forms,
and one with Avatar Lore can see the
pack's totem as well (usually
either at the werewolf's side or melded
with its own form -- eg, a
Crinos with Stag's legs and horns).
Wraiths: Wraiths are not, despite common
belief, the "souls" of the dead
-- not per se. Rather, they are the
egos, the remnants of the mortal
selves; the superego/Avatar portion
of the Self is called the Eidolon in
the Underworld.
Faeries: Faeries have no souls. That's
a well-known fact; when a faerie
is walking the earth and someone looks
at it with spirit-sight, there's
simply nothing there. They have an astral
form, because they are
sentient, but they have no primal spirit-form,
no Avatars at all. They do
occasionally have something similar
to a "halo" -- an aura of energy and
power like those surrounding mages,
but the "halo" of faeries has a
frenetic, glittering, wyld quality to
it, as if the energies were not the
potent Quintessence mages know, but
something different, something
wholly fae.
CROWN & HALO The "Crown" is the portion
of the Avatar that
manifests to those with the ability
to sense the Avatars of mages and
even Sleepers. This ability in, game
terms, is a Talent or Knowledge
(Avatar Lore) plus either Spirit 2 or
Awareness 4, or both. It is called
the Crown after Sahasrara (the 7th Chakra,
also called Ananda), that
bright white nexus of Divine energy
depicted in eastern texts as
positioned directly above the head.
Those select few who are versed in
the ways of Avatars can sense the relative
power of a mage's Avatar,
and perhaps even something about it's
nature -- unless the mage has
countermagicks or psychic shields up.
The "Halo" is the aura of energy
and power that surrounds every magus.
This is completely seperate
from the Aura perceived with Mind 2
and Awareness 3, which depicts
emotional and mental states and can
be seen in every human. Some
Halos are so faint they can barely be
seen; these usually describe a
mage who is holding little or no Quintessence,
has a weak Avatar, or
...this either means a weak magus or
a more powerful one that is laying
low.
AVATAR/MAGE RELATIONSHIPS Puppetmaster
-- The mage is a
pawn, unwitting or unwilling, and the
Avatar is manipulating its host to
its own ends...however dark or kind
those may be. Enigmatic Guide --
The Avatar is leading the mage to something,
some knowledge or
understanding, perhaps Ascension, perhaps
simply a memory buried
deeply in some past life... but the
trail it leaves is ambiguous and
uncertain, either due to interference
from outside, problems with the
mage, or the Avatar's own intent. Distant
-- The Avatar seems
unconcerned and uninterested in the
mage and her life, instead drifting
off into contemplation, fantasy, or
even half-slumber. This is the most
common Avatar / mage relationship. Partner
-- The Avatar willingly and
effectively works with the mage, pursuing
mortal goals as well as urging
the mage on to more esoteric ones. This
is the second most common
relationship.
Sorry this was so long...
...no, I'm not...
Peregrine seems to have summed it up
a bit: I'll put a bit of my own
interpretation on it all:
In WW, I see every human being as having
a generic instance of the
"human spirit". This is just like how
a cow has a cow-spirit, a fish has a
fish-spirit, and whatnot: it's what
makes humans spiritually similar. In
addition, each person has a unique spiritual
aspect called the Avatar:
many would call this the soul. (Incedently,
I believe this spirit/soul
distinction is Mideval in origin. At
least, that's where I got it. According
to Mideval theology, every living thing
had a spirit, but only humans had
souls.)
When someone dies, the Avatar either
jumps on the big 'ol wheel for
another spin, or Trancends along with
the diceased. The Mind/spirit
element that is left either Trancends
along with the Avatar, or becomes
a Wraith in the underworld. The gaping
spiritual hole where the Avatar
once was in the mental/spiritual makeup
of the wraith becomes the
Shadow.
faith-seeks-understanding
The "human spirit" idea has merits, but
it's a little to platonic for me.
Plato viewed each species as having
a set type, and the real world was
filled with imperfect reflections of
those types. We are all just watching
shadows on the wall. I don't like the
idea of the type, as it does not
coincide with modern day evolutionary
theory. Species are not defined
by types, but by reproductively isolated
groups. What happens though,
is that at times this reproductive isolation
is not as isolated as we might
think, and other times a blending effect
occurs where there is no
obvious place to set a species boundary,
as each neighboring
population can interbreed with the next,
but two populations far away
from each other on the continuum are
isolated. In short, I don't like
types.
Next, I know what the game says about
Avatars, and I don't like it. It is
too limiting and too narrow an idea
to define the spiritual realms and
spiritual sides of people the way they
do. I think a broader systems of
beliefs would be possible, if they just
did away with the need for the
avatar as a serperate entity, that just
happens to be hanging out with you
for awhile. It's a nice idea, but not
the only one.
-- Simon
I'm really not trying to come to a concensus
with this topic. I would like
to brainstorm ideas for alternative
posibilities and keep this section of
the game as vague as the stylistic sections.
This is an area of
metaphysics which should remain as vague
as possible to encourage
more discussion. With that in mind,
would the chorus really buy into the
wheel of life thing (at least those
with christian origins)? To further that,
the Euthanatos tradition would be on
much shakier ground if this
metaphysical side of the game were much
more vague. Killing people
by the droves is a justifiable (to some)
act when you know they will be
reincarnated. However, when you are
unsure of that fact ... Anyway,
I'm not trying to put down anybodies
views, I'm only trying to shake off
the more dogmatic parts of the game.
Whatever floats your boat strategy.
I agree that there's no need for a consensus on the topic, and
that play seems more
enjoyable without the certain dogmatic soulstuff.
A note, though... the Choristers aren't really of Christian origin...
Ancient Egypt, 4000s BC
I think, was when they first congregated.
Also, maybe we could come up with some other ideas on what Avatars
are? I've heard
theories calling them actual angels (religious and Hermetic),
calling them one's future
(maybe even Ascended?) Self... they might even be a race of manipulative
and scheming
but powerful spirits from the Outer Realities, possessing mortals
and deluding them with
the whole "Awakening" concept so that they'll go along with everything.
Hmmm... or maybe the Society of Leopold is right, and they're all just demons...
Anyone else?
Peregrine
"I met a woman long ago, her hair
the black that black can go
Are you a teacher of the heart,
soft she answered No
I met a girl across the sea,
her hair the gold that gold can be
Are you a teacher of the heart,
Yes but not for thee
I met a man who lost his mind
in some lost place I had to find
Follow me the wise man said,
but he walked behind
Several girls embraced me then
I was embraced by men
Is my passion perfect, No do
it once again
I was handsome I was strong,
I knew the words to every song
Did my singing please you, No
the words you sang were wrong
Well teachers are my lessons
done, I cannot do another one
They laughed and laughed and
said well child, are your lessons done?
Are your lessons done?
Are your lessons done?"
-- Leonard Cohen, "Teachers"
allright
Here's what it's always come down to in my game.personal faith.
Every avatar I've had has been different,
I think the only reason that
there is anything similar to an official
cosmology is out of a need for a
functioning system of quintessence management
in the mechanics of the
game. That and the impact of the Mercurian
Cosmology on the
traditions as a whole.
As far as I'm concerned avatars are as
personal to a mage as their
magical style.
let's consider teh some examples from some books
VAA mysterious chat partner explaining things... (BoS avatar essay
Here we have a paradigmatically appropriate
impression, it's what that
person expects to see, therefore it's
what they see
GeneralA disconected voice explaining
things: I don't remember what
book this was in, but it involved a
mage standing on a mountain top
singing...
CoXJust who was that woman who turned
that nerdy girl around,
dancing naked in the rain and intorducing
her to her future mentor...
Could've been a recruiter... could've
been someting more personal....
These are all examples of pattern avatars though...
The best dynamic avatar I've ever seen
comes from one of my players.
Don't steal it, I'm already translating
into writing of my own...
Her avatar communicates in loose visions
in dreams, these mean nothing
until the character sculpts the dream,
in clay or metal.Once it's sculpted,
she stops having the dream, but still
hast to figure out what the sculpture
means.
this is a WONDERFULLY personal and complicated
idea, which
allows for a lot of fun character manipulation
on my part, and a lot of
interesting character developement for
the player.
If you don't want to be tied down by
the systemtranscend it, do things
taht numbers can't match, and save the
numbers for when they're
necesary.
allright,
enough trash from me
peace
-Darius Kalshane, Orphan Mage, Focus
Cabal
"So how do you all run things as far
as when and how a mage can tell
another person is a mage?Say an orphan
is walking around Times
Square..."
That's an excellent question! I've always
wondered how exactly
different Storytellers outside of my
gaming clique run different things like
Mage detection, countermagick, resisting
Mind magicks, and so on. I
commend you for the idea.
Alright, I recently changed the way which
I run this, because of
something that I read, which I will
get to later. I have a Mage make a
perception + awareness roll. If they
are just wandering the Square, it
would be difficulty 9 or 10. With 1-3
successes, I'd tell them they get an
odd feeling. With 4-5 I'd tell them
that they get the feeling something
supernatural is somewhere abouts. With
over 5, I'd tell them a Mage is
nearby. (Maybe not in so many words,
but…)
What I read that made a lot of sense
was the rote 'Technovision' in the
book Digital Web 2.0. It allows for
perceptions across the board,
usually in the form of a Terminator-style
visual overlay. However, the
important part is that it stated that
detection of supernaturals and other
odd things still required a perception
+ awareness roll. The standard
difficulty of this roll was 4, but it
stressed that conditions could modify
this roll. (Such as Arcane subtracting
dice from the pool, and whatnot.)
I really like this idea, and I'm using
it. I would make the results more
specific when the roll is in conjunction
with the first level of an
appropriate sphere. And Mages walking
around with mystic senses
would get lower awareness difficulties,
but slightly higher alertness
difficulties (especially those who are
'new to the game', so to speak), for
dealing with the extra sensory input
(I'd excuse this for multitasking
Mages or those with exceptional perceptions).
Of course, I let Mages who like to carry
massive Talismans or a full
Quintessence wheel light up like a Christmas
tree. If the player is
actively looking or checking to see
if a person is a Mage, I usually allow
them to get a 'supernatural or not'
distinction fairly easily. I find it works
better if the ST handles the perception
rolls, as suggested by the book
(and I really should do that more often).
That way, if they insist on
checking every person they meet, only
the ST will know that they
botched, and that street cop really
isn't some sort of Euthanitos
vigilante.
(My real problem is when mages try to
use Awareness to detect every
magic used in the game to counter it…
Like when one NPC used her
magic to enhance her appearance, and
a player demanded an
Awareness roll [and of course he scored
notable successes, despite the
high difficulty; right] and then either
a countermagic or willpower roll to
completely ignore the effect… Ah, aggravation
abounds and often
pounces on the noble Storyteller.)
-- Bit Nine
The Awakened are visible from the Penumbra.
This just means, that
while normal people can't be seen, or
can barely be made out against
the Penumbral landscape, mages and the
like can be. It does not mean
that they can be attacked from the Umbra,
just spotted from there.
Creatures that have a 'sideways attack'
power, and spirits that can
make attacks like possession attempts
accross the Gauntlet can
certainly do so as usual.
One thing to note, is that most mages
have an affinity for the High
Umbra, and thus, it would not be unreasonable
for thier Avatars to be
visible only to those percieveing the
Penumbra through a High-Umbral
Videre (that is, who themselves enter
the High Umbra when stepping
sideways).
Thus, Garou, for instance, might notice
the Avatar of a Dreamspeaker
or Verbena who naturally travels to
the Middle Umbra, but fail to see
that of an Hermetic mage or Technomancer.
---
|
Blake 1001, Virtual Adept, Disciple
---|-.
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/1317
'-|---
|
I've always gone by the idea that the
Avatar of a mage can only be seen
with Spirit 1 *and* Avatar Lore of at
least 3. I usually have it appear as
a gleaming sphere of varying size that
floats a few inches above the
mage's head, as per the 7th Chakra Saharara,
"The Crown". This is the
higher self. The mage himself (or herself)
will be able to percieve their
own Avatar without Spirit 1, as long
as their Avatars are level 3 or
higher, and will see the Avatar in it's
personal form (their old professor,
the Egyptian goddess Sakhmet, a living
pillar of flame, whatever)
instead of simply as The Crown.
Only in marauders (or *very* inexperienced
mages) does the Avatar
cause magick to occur without the mage
knowing about it.In a sense,
the mage is the Avatar's "focus", and
is necessary for the working of
magick. (aside: maybe Ascension is like
Arete gain in more than one
way, and Oracles are those Avatars have
transcended the need to use
the mortal mage for magick...?)
As for umbral attacks, I think that one
*might* be able to directly
attack an Avatar in the Astral Plane,
but not in the Umbra, not directly...
or maybe vice-versa, maybe it depends
on the type of mage. The
mortal "soul", or the ego-spirit, should
I think be subject to such attacks
in the Umbra or Astra, just like any
other spirit, but the Avatar seems to
me to be such a rarified and abstracted
manifestation of a being that it
owuld be like... attacking a fifth-dimensional
entity in the third
dimension... or something. I think it
could be done, but it'd be really
hard, and may require more potent magicks.
My thoughts... please comment... =)
Peregrine
"I've always gone by the idea that the
Avatar of a mage can only be
seen with Spirit 1 *and* Avatar Lore
of at least 3."
Spirit 1? I've always required a little
bit more to percieve Avatars. I
really always thought of the Avatar
coexisting with the Mage and the
visions it produced being just that:
visions produced by the Avatar,
viewable only by that Mage. It seemed
to go with what it said in the
core Mage book (specifically on Page
32), that very powerful Avatars
could be seen with potent Spirit Magick.
I suppose you could attempt a simple
detection with lower level Spirit
magick, which is what (I think) you
were talking about. But I like to
up-play the closeness between the Avatar
and Mage, and keep the
Avatar as something only the possessing
Mage interacts with. (Gilgul
nonwithstanding.)
As for other supernaturals, I wouldn't
let them 'attack' a Mages Avatar.
Well, at least not most of them. They'd
need to have some pretty heavy
justification and the power, skill,
and knowledge to back it up.
And any non-Mage 'attacking' Avatars
would quite probably soon find
himself hunted by the Euthanitos/Celestial
Chorus/Akashic
Brotherhood/other Mage groups as the
echoes of their abhorrent deeds
rippled through the Wheel.
-- Bit Nine
It says in the main Mage book that one
particular paradox spirit abducts
a Mage's avatar and binds it in some
inaccessible corner of the Umbra.
I take this to mean that the Avatar
isn't necessarily with the mage
(meta)physically at any given time.
They often run around manipulating
circumstances around their mage, and
I'd think it'd be hard to be
disguised and bump into your mage in
a bar if anybody with Spirit 3
could see your essence tied to a Chakra.
I think that the relationship between
a mage and his avatar is a sublime,
complex, and poorly understood and even
more poorly observed
connection. It's like the delicate and
wondrous miracle that is a living,
complex organism. You don't need to
understand it to blast it apart with
a shotgun, which is what I think Gilgul
does. Blind destruction
introduced into a system which has nothing
to do with the weapon and
is so much more than bits of lead and
gunpowder could ever hope to
approach.
$0.02
My avatar manifests as breakfast cereal
What do your rice krispies say to you?
>"the Avatar isn't necessarily with the mage
(meta)physically at any given
time. They often run around manipulating circumstances
around their
mage, and I'd think it'd be hard to be disguised
and bump into your mage
in a bar if anybody with Spirit 3 could see
your essence tied to a
Chakra."<
Well, I never really considered that an issue
(bumping into your Avatar at
a bar) unless the mage had an Avatar rating
of like 5 minimum. I could
see a mage with a rating of 3 having visions
of his Avatar in a bar, but I
don't think anyone else would see it, and
certainly wouldn't be connecting
anything to some chakra on that guy in the
corner. Kindof my whole
point was that it took the Avatar Lore knowledge
in addition to the Spirit
magicks, and I guess the part I didn't clarify
was that the Avatar Lore
knowledge is pretty rare in my games -- only
a handful of Hermetics,
Akashics, and Chakravanti (and maybe a few
Choristers) have more
than a dot or two in it. Therefore even if
a mage DID have a hugely
powerful Avatar that could manifest physically
in a separate form, there's
only about 15 mages in the world that would
be at all likely to notice that
it was an Avatar.
Just clarifying... them's me rules, ya don't need to use'em...
My rice krispies
tell me to head to the nearest mall
and slice,
dice, puree, grind, and smash until the cops
take the t-bird
away...
I try to listen to my cheerios...
Patrick ([email protected])
March 28, 1999 (09:14)
Prime is the "end all" power for controlling the flow of Magics
to and fro, but I have
an analogy I could use a few cents on:
Can you Countermagic with Spirit using the concept of interfering
with the "link"
between a Mage and his/her Avatar?Spirit 5 can be used to execute
Gilgul, "the
permanent seperation of a mage from the Avatar." Spirit 2 will
let you "Call and/or
Banish Spirits", theoretically that would work on an Avatar....would
it cause an
interference like the interference caused by "magics opposing
the Avatar's designs"
?? Or is it even a probable idea? Anybody have some input?
I didn't really care, until the Mage wanted to use silver beads
as a hydrocannon..... then I had to make a rules decision!
Time for me to trot out my old argument---
I wouldn't allow that. Rune-Fetter the paradox spirit actually
kidnaps avatars, and while that's a severe inconvenience, the mage can
still use magick.
I also (personally) hate it when people talk about Avatars as
just another spirit. Spirit 5 can harm a shard of the Pure Ones, but that's
it. It can't manipulate, create, uncreate, summon, banish, awaken(!),
or otherwise affect the Avatar. Next to an avatar, Spirit magick
is a blunt instrument.
Think how unbalancing it'd be if you could use Spirit 2 "Rouse Spirit" to awaken any avatar. Yikes.
Can you use Spirit magick to counter
anything and everything because
the Avatar can be considered a spirit?
Gotta be a 'No.' To that one.
It might not be wholly unreasonable to
try to use Spirit 3 'Lull Spirit' on
a person in a way something like Anti-Magick(normally
prime 2). But,
instead of spending quint to raise thier
difficulties, you'd have to get
more successes than the victim's Avatar
rating before you could start
increasing magick difficulties. Of coure,
it'd be resisted by Willpower.
Then again, that might just put the victim to sleep...
I'm not sure - I don't think Spirit was
really written up with the idea of
applying it to people. The gross physcial
form, perhaps, acts as a
fortress for the Spirit native to it.
---
|
Blake 1001, Virtual Adept, Disciple
---|-.
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/1317
'-|---
|
I'd agree with Blake that Spirit magick
countering all other magick isn't
a balanced idea.
I'd disagree with tDK however, on the
point that it would be
unbalanced to be able to use Spirit
2 to Awaken Avatars. I've always
figured that's how Trad mages do it...
but that doesn't mean it's all that
easy, just roll and succeed and BAM!
mage.
I require an Avatar Lore Knowledge of
at least 3 before Spirit magick
can be applied to Avatars at all, and
any mage in my games who has an
Avatar Lore of less than 4 and has tried
Awakening someone would
advise against it, not a good idea.
Not to mention the fact that in my
House Rules you have to have a subject
with a Willpower of at least 5
before you can successfully Awaken them,
otherwise they go
Marauder. Most people I figure at a
2 or maybe a 3 WP. So you often
have to teach them how to develop discipline
and force of will, which
requires time and effort and training...
etc.
I do think that with a high enough Avatar
Lore rating, and the proper
preparation, Spirit magick can affect
Avatars at least somewhat. But
Avatar Lore must be taught by someone
who has it, and in my games
it's not a common Knowledge at all...
possessed only by a handful of
Hermetics, Akashics, Euthanatos, and
maybe some Solificati...
So there ya go...
Hrm. I've already been shot down once
in a discussion on Avatars; I
have a somewhat unorthodox view, it
seems, but here goes.
First, interfering with a person's connection
to his Avatar is a plausible
but difficult way to carry out countermagick.
A lot will depend on the
other person's relationship to his Avatar,
really. An Iterator might well
laugh off the attempt; a child mage
a friend of mine recently introduced
on the chats who perceives his Avatar
as the genie from an oil lamp (ie,
uses a form of WishCraft) would be in
serious trouble. It depends on
where the person sees his power as coming
from.
Second, I don't particularly see why
an Avatar is considered so special.
Granted, it's a somewhat abstract being
not easily perceptible. _All_
spirits, however, are shards of the
Pure Ones (if the ST is willing to go
with the idea that the Pure Ones ever
existed), and you'll note that the
more powerful ones can work true magick.
Yet some people seem to
want to have to go to great lengths
to affect one in any way (there's
even an Avatar Sphere lurking on BJ
Zanzibar's site). Perhaps it's ST
reluctance to say that someone is able
to tamper with the souls of actual
people (characters, but people in the
game's context).
Third, one possible source, the notion
that if they're the same then one
can simply jolt an Avatar awake with
Spirit 3, is explicitly contradicted
by the Big Purple Book anyway. It's
not that it's something that can't be
done because the Avatar is so odd, but
that "awakening" the spirit of
my lucky sweatsocks and "awakening"
my Avatar are two totally
different phenomena. Perhaps it would
be better to describe Awakening
as "Awakening _to_ the Avatar", ie,
becoming aware of one's full
potential as a sentient being not bound
by some curse, altered state, or
greater spirit.
If this approach causes some kind of
system problem, just tell me--I've
never managed to storytell a Mage chronicle;
I came close once but I
couldn't get all the players together
because of schedule
conflicts.Maccabeus the Mad
One God, One Truth;
One Church, One World
Wow !!
Thanks for all the input. I like it all. Most especially I agree
that interfering with the
Avatar-Mage connection is most likely a Spirit 3 effect, and
that the whole "ability to affect" is going to hang on the paradigm of
the victim. Perhaps the true determinant would be the congruity of the
two paradigms, with an appropriate "stretch". I.E. An Akashic might be
able to interfere with a Hermetic Avatar, but would likely have difficulty
with an Iteration X'er. As an experienced, learning ST, I 'think' the Mad
one is looking at an interesting storyline and plot background. I actually
LIKE the concept of Spirit affecting Avatars. On and on everything in the
"big purple" indicates that Avatars are like "Sprit guides" and "the other
half of the Mage." The phrasing indicates to me that the Avatar is something
akin to the Spirit of the Mage. I remember something in the "big purple"
indicating that Masters of Spirit could directly communicate with powerful
Avatars.
And while I'm rambling, what would the effect be of Spirit Magic
on persons and
places? Could you heal a blight? How would it reflect in the
mundane world? Would the Mundane world attempt to reconform to the altered
spiritual? Or Vice Versa?
I'm not usually this long winded, but discussing this is nuetral
territory
Hrm. For healing a Blight, I would demand
_at least_ Entropy 4, Spirit
4, and lots of successes. An extended
ritual using Entropy 4 Life 4
Prime 3 Spirit 4 would be ideal.
Maccabeus the Mad
((And, btw, so long as I'm calling myself
"the Mad" or "Epimanes"
(which means the same) you can trust
me. On the off chance that I
should begin calling myself "Epiphanes",
or possible translations such as
"the Illustrious" or more literally
"God-Manifest", then begin to worry.))
One God, One Truth;
One Church, One World
I also agree that affecting one's avatar
would depend on BOTH
paradigms. I have a Verbena whose avatar
is Bear. With spirit magick,
you might distract the avatar, and effectively
reduce his avatar rating to
zero for a scene, at most. But without
killing ALL bears in the world,
you could not seperate him from his
avatar permanently. Well, maybe if
he THOUGHT bears were extinct...
-- Scotto
Right. I've heard it a buncha times that
Mages need Willpower 5 in
order for a Mage to Awaken. Willpower
5 may be the level that a
starting level Mage is expected to have
achieved, but it isn't supposed
to be part of logical conditional statement
to determine Awaken-ability.
For examples I would point both to the
students listen in the Progenitor
book, which have a willpower of 4. But
the best example probably is
the Apprentice template in the core
book, newly awakened, without
any Spheres, and a willpower of 3. But
I'd figure that Mages on the
path to learning about True Magick probably
develop their willpower
along the way.
I think that the lower levels of Spirit
shouldn't mess with the Avatar at
all. I could see Avatars even inherintly
being difficult to effect with
Magick and resistant to its effects.
Moreover, they were never
supposed to be treated just like spirits.
There were just some very high
level effects that could (if crudely)
interact with them.
Though I'd have to say that I'd give
a mage with Spirit 6 a fair amount
of leeway within this area, that's not
someone any person in any of my
games will play, and will probably not
ever appear as a NPC unless
specifically demanded for by the plot.
case Apprentice:
{
p.Attribute=13;
p.Ability=21;
p.Sphere=0;
p.Arete=num(1,2);
p.Willpower=3;
p.Background=3;
};
Hey, I know that my whole WP 5 thing isn't supported by the sourcebooks.
You may or may not be aware of hom much of a flying fig I give.
=) But I *did*
say I was talking about my own personal House Rules. It makes
sense to me
that in order to control reality one must have an exceptional
will.
Also, I think a big difference here is that, while some people
are willing and able
to view Avatars as spiritual entities, others are seeing them
more as patterned
Mind entities. Kindof along the lines of the whole Technocrat/Mystick
thing, it
seems. Maybe some mages' Avatars are most easily contacted and
affected on
the Astral, with Mind magick, and others' are contacted and affected
by Spirit,
depending on the paradigm? I dunno. Anyway. I thought my whole
spiel on
allowing Spirit 3 and above to begin affecting Avatars, with
a requisite Avatar
Lore Knowledge, was pretty spiffy, but it seems I'm alone in
even commenting
on it... ah well, sigh swoon crash and all that. I can understand
not wanting to
mess with letting mages mess with Avatars much, but making it
an
Archmasters-only thing seems a bit much to me... but hey, play'em
as you
see'em. Right? Right.
Pflah.
It is the Sleeper that Awakens, the Avatar was always so....
...and, I *AM* god incarnate. =)
Do you trust me?
I've been Story Telling for quite awhile
now and there's one thing that's
always bugged me in the big purple book.
It says that the Mage's
Avatar rating driectly influences how
much quintessence the Mage can
manipulate in one round. However, it
gives no answer to how much
quintessence a mage can manipulate if
he/she has no Avatar rating. In
my games I simply stated a house rule
that quintessence can be
transferred on a 1 per 2 round basis
as opposed to the normal (Avatar
Rating)/round if the PC has no Avatar
rating. While most players would
bawk at the thought of NOT having an
Avatar rating, I'm still curious to
see how many other Story Tellers may
have run into this dilemma.
-- Killer Jack Diamond
([email protected])
According to Sorceror's Crusade, all
mages must have an Avatar rating
of at least 1; without it, you're a
Sleeper. I assume they meant the same
for M:tA, but didn't state it outright.
I thought this was kind of silly--why
have it as a level for which you
have to pay creation points? I never
ran a mage of the sort you're
discussing, but my mechanics idea was
the same as yours.
Maccabeus the Mad
One God, One Truth;
One Church, One World
I would generally require at least one
point of Avatar for any mage
character. The Sorcerer's Crusade guideline
makes sense from a
metaphysical standpoint. I like your
solution for characters that choose
to put their Background points elsewhere,
though.
I read another post on this forum once
where an ST said that he gave all
of his PCs an automatic point of Destiny
during character creation.
Although this guideline would not hold
for every NPC, I tend to agree
that PCs are expected to do reasonably
remarkable things and an
automatic point of Destiny is a good
reflection of that fact.
In light of that digression, another
possible solution is to give all mage
characters created with zero points
of Avatar one free point. Hope this
helps.
Orphan
I have always enforced requiring a mage
to have an avatar rating of at
least one.
I don't feel bad about this because most
other supernaturals get only 5
freebie points. Having seven is like
saying, "Here, have a two point
avatar for free... of course if you
want more you have to buy it."
Deuce.
First off, let me thank Orphan for the kind words regarding my
auto-Destiny
for PCs.
Now, I'd either agree that the first rank of Avatar should be free, or....
Say, "why not?" to a player who wants to have a 0-Avatar character.
I can already tell that this is going to put me in the minority,
but hold on a sec.
I'm not saying the character doesn't have an Avatar, just that
the Avatar is no
stronger than the "baseline" needed to work Magick.
The only thing this means is that a character cannot manipulate
his Magick rolls
with Quintessence, nor have a base pool of Q. that is refreshed
automatically
when he meditates at a Node. There is still no reason he can't
use the higher
levels of Prime Magick to draw Q. from Nodes and use it in Talisman
creation.
Now, what would a 0-Rank Avatar look like? Not much. Kind of like
the
fighting skill of someone with a Rank 0 Brawl ability; there's
nothing stopping
such a person from throwing a punch--they still have all their
limbs, after
all--they just have nothing beyond the raw ability of their Dex
rating.
Such an individual probably wouldn't even believe he HAS an Avatar,
even
though wiser Magi will simply pity its weakness. If he can sense
his Avatar, it
would probably be little more than a vague, shadowy awareness--the
occasional odd dream, or maybe a series of coincidental omens;
no really
direct contact would occur.
Seekings should be more challenging for this character, but on
the other hand,
he won't have to deal with the brow-beating that other Magi get
from their
Avatars. Seekings might take place entirely within the "real
world", rather than
on some level of heightened consciousness.
--Freemage
As opposed to the 5-Avatar, who drops by regularly for tea.
Well, in Mage 1st Ed, the limit is either
your Avatar score or your dots
in Prime. So, you could fall back to
that. A Mage with no Avatar, but
who has Prime, can spend up to his dots
in Prime each turn. Obviously,
an Avatar 2, Prime 5 mage can spendup
to 5 per turn. Don't know why
they changed it, really... maybe they
didn't even mean to. There's a lot
of mistakes in those books, y'know...
It depends what you mean by Awakened. It has at least three meanings.
On is "spirtually awakened". This is
what you get with Spirit magick or
Garou rites, or simply when someone
cares about an object alot. Its
spirit wakes up from the attention or
energy it has recieved. Pretty much
anything can spirtually awaken, although
humans can't as such, but that
leads to...
Magickally Awakened. This is when you
go from having a Sleeper
Avatar to have an Awakened Avatar. It
could indeed be simply seen as
the human version of spirtually awakened
as the Avatar could be seen
as the spiritual part of the human.
Can any human Awaken? Does the potential
of Sleeper Avatars just
vary, or are some incapable of it? Mages
have been debating that one
for a long time. Even given every Sleeper
Avatar can potentailly
Awaken, some Sleepers personalities
may mean they never will.
Certainly certain circumstances seem
to lead to it. Different Trad have
their different appraoches, near death
expierinces, vsisionquests and the
like. All these are really doing is
putting certain people into certain
situations where Awakening is more likely.
The third is Mages term for non-Sleepers.
They tend to call the other
Supernatural "Awakened" simply becuase
they are not Sleepers. This is
an exclusive club however, if you're
Avatar isn't right you don't get in.
Of course anyone can get into the Vampire
Club, just get embraced.
Wether it destorys, transmutes or replaces
you're Avatar it does
something to it, and you ain't a Sleeper
no more. Even magick can get
you there if you have the vitae, just
ask Tremere.
Shifters are shifters from birth, or
even conception, having a fundemtally
different spirtual makeup. No Sleeper
Avatar for them but a direct
connection to Gaia. In if a Human is
a PC with standalone operating
system (Avatar) the Shifters are terminals,
they can do some stuff
themselves but the real power comes
from thier mainframe, Gaia. The
power they have lies in the strength
of their connection.
If you aren't born that way no about
of nature loving, mystic realisation
or awarness gets you to be a shifter,
everyone else simply lacks the
spirtual hardware. The First Change
is realisation, not a transformation.
Of course there is the Ritual of Sacred
Rebirth...
Changelings have a Faerie soul from birth
(again possibly before) that
eithr co-exisits with or possible replaces
the human one, no Farie soul
no Changeling.
Certainly there is a way in which just
about everything can be
Awakened in someway, normally spirtualy.
To work magick however requires more
than "just" an Awakened
Avatar, it requires and understanding
of a paradgim, and context with
which you can impose you're will on
reality. In fact it also need will full
stop. Animals an inamiate objects generally
lack both.
Of course if they spiritually awaken
the spirits could potentailly have
will, sneitence and even magick. It
would be pretty exceptional but in
that sense just about everything could
be Awakened.
Sure you could argue, its not really
the cat doing magick, its just
spirtually Awakened and the Cat-spirit
is doing magick. Of course you
could argue its not the human doing
magick its just the Human-spirit
(aka Avatar) doing magick...
Mant
-- Mant
Tyr ([email protected])
March 31, 1999 (07:33)
My collection of Mage books is still
somewhat limited but nowhere in
any of the books that I do own is there
a straightforward explanation of
avatars. Of course in a game like Mage
it's incredibly difficult to give a
straight answer about anything since
every tradition (and every member
of those traditions) has a different
view of reality but I'd really like to
hear how people handle avatars in their
games.
Is your avatar the spark of creativity,
a little voice in your head, a
glowing figure that pushes you to develop
your abilities, a talking mirror
hanging in your bedroom...? Is the avatar
a completely different
personality that you share your consciousness
with or is it just a sort of
superego? I'm just totally clueless
as to how to incorporate players'
avatars into the story.
Are they omnipresent, giving warnings
about things the players are
unaware of? Can they exert any kind
of control over the mage's body
or use limited magick to assist the
mage?
Anyway, enough questions for now. I look
foreward to seeing what
people have to say.
Good artists borrow,
great artists steal.
-Picasso
Mind 1 or 2 to communicate with your Avatar
Spirit 1 to see it, but only if it is an Avatar of rating 3 or higher
Spirit 1 and Avatar Lore 3 for others to see your Avatar
DETECTING MAGES
So how do you all figure it's possible to detect mages in everyday
encounters? As in, an orphan on the streets of NYC is trying to survive
and stay out of the way of the big boys (OoH, Union). What Spheres
or Abilities or whatever would he need to tell if that guy who's been studying
him is Awakened? There's some obvious ways -- using Prime 1 to see
if they've got clouds of energy in a halo around them, but few mages actually
carry that much Quint at once, and those that do probably have ways of
shielding the halo (but how, I wonder?). Or by aura, using Mind or
Awareness 3 or Auspex or something... but how is a mage's aura different
than a normal human's? The Aura Chart says that a mage's aura has
"myriad sparkles", but I think that's only when they're using magick, and
besides, that's not very descriptive. And maybe there's a spiritual
aura as well as an emotional aura, something visible with Spirit 1, which
allows you to tell whether a given spirit is Awake or not...
And then there's the whole big Avatar issue. I know there need be no consensus, but ideas would be welcome -- for example how does one look at an Avatar? Should a mage need Spirit 1 to see even his own Avatar and Spirit or Mind 2 to communicate with it? How would a mage go about studying another's Avatar? I developed a Knowledge called Avatar Lore that I regard as necessary for anything involving Avatars. I also developed an aspect of the Avatar known as the Crown (corresponding with the 7th chakra, Ananda or Sahasrara), which I concieve of as being the most outward aspect of the higher Self, and I imagine that if another's Avatar were percieved in any way, the Crown would be easiest. So maybe Spirit 1 to see the Avatar... or maybe you have to have at least one dot in Avatar Lore also, and then you see only the Crown aspect... or maybe you have to have at least THREE dots in A.L. just to see an Avatar... depends on how specialized you want the Knowledge to be.
And aren't there some Garou Gifts and half-Faerie thingies and Wraith abilities that allow them to sense supernaturals? Then there's noticing subtler things, like what might be Paradox flaws (disorientation, unnaturally colored hair, unique burns or scars). Or the manifestations of the Echoes Flaw, or the Strangeness Flaw. Or you could pay attention to what the other person notices -- said orphan sees that the guy watching him also noticed the glass-elemental's sudden activity, and realizes there's definitely something unusual about the guy.
Any other ideas, clarifications?
Peregrine
Did I just answer my own questions? Why then do I still seek more
answers... *swoon*